A demain, Paris
by Flight-of-Fantasies
Summary: We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars (Wilde) Ichigo is moping around Paris, depressed and drunk and generally unhappy. Spleen and mal de vivre. Yet a random encounter with a certain blue-haired Frenchman leaves him with...hope for tomorrow. Oneshot in two parts. T for now...most certainly M in part two. Oh yes.


**A/N - **So I promised myself I wouldn't write anything new until I perfected the last chapter of my other story. But I am high on pain meds right now so I forgive myself…plus this is only going to be a two-shot (do they even exist? Is it a one-shot in two parts? A double-shot? Two half-shots ? I digress…)

Enjoy. I love Paris.

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**A demain, Paris**

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**We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars**

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_Il faut être toujours ivre. Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du temps qui brise nos épaules, il faut s'enivrer sans trêve. De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise. __Mais enivrez-vous! _

_**Charles Baudelaire**_

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I stumbled out of the cafe into the encroaching shadows of the autumn twilight, my head spinning more than was probably reasonable, my mind blurred and vague from too many glasses of cheap wine.

The air was cool and fresh against my flushed flesh and as I looked up I saw the moon hanging silvery and ethereal in the sky.

I scoffed at it and looked down at the chewing-gum patterned tarmac at my feet. Much more suited to my mood.

Once upon a time the moon was magical and mystical and held a myriad of untold secrets. Now it was but a thing that waxed and waned as it hung limply in the sky, a celestial body signalling the passage of time. Nothing more, nothing less.

Time. Something I had too much of and she had none of. I had been depressed for a while, but that soon faded and now I found myself wondering the streets of the city she loved but a jaded husk, carrying her memory.

I hadn't even lived in the city for years. No, I fled to the country of my birth long ago, leaving Paris and France far behind. I fled as far as possible, across the ocean to a city so unlike this one it almost funny. New York was new where Paris was old, was fast where Paris was laissez-faire, was shiny as Paris was scuffed.

And that's the way I liked it.

And yet I still...this year I had taken the leap and made the trek to the place she had so loved to visit her grave.

It was in Pierre Lachaise. You may have heard of it. It's a pretty famous cemetery, but she was allowed to be buried there because she had been well-known and beautiful, and above all had died in the city.

And now I was in that same city.

My editor Rukia said it showed progress. My sister Karin said it was about time I grew some balls. Her twin Yuzu scolded her but was smiling all the same. My dad cried and said I had finally grown up. Rukia's boyfriend Renji said I should pick up some "hot French tail" whilst I was here.

Um, yeah.

I'm not sure if any of them were correct. I mean...I had been here for a whole day and still hadn't managed to go anywhere near the cemetery.

All I had managed to was get plastered.

I checked my watch: 17:47. Wow, and it wasn't even all that late. I suppose that's what happens when you start drinking at 11:30 in the morning.

Whatever. I ignored the tourists wandering around, wondering what sites to visit. Screw them. Suddenly, I didn't want to be here anymore. I wanted to be back in New York, in my tiny, brand new apartment, alone with a bottle of wine and re-watching season one of Dexter. I didn't want to be in the city of love as a single person. I didn't want to be in this place so full of history that each step was making my heart swell. Nope. I would just go back to my room in that little hotel near Montmartre, and close the blinds, order room service, and watch some crap on TV.

Maybe porn. I mean...it's not like anyone had come with me. And let's face it; I had been single for three years. That wasn't about to change anytime soon.

I shuffled my way to the nearest metro station and blearily made my way to the right platform. Seriously, the lines could be like a fucking maze. Luckily I knew the way.

The ride was mercifully quick because the feeling of being squashed was making the wine slosh around uncomfortably in my stomach. Maybe it had been too cheap. I hurried out of the doors and up the stairs, pushing past people without a word in my haste to get some fresh air again.

The coolness it me with a blast and I found myself heaving next to some large brown bins. Judging from the smells I was at the back of a restaurant. They were, in all fairness, delicious smells, but my uneasy stomach was misinterpreting them. I slowly emptied my guts, the acid of the alcohol making my eyes sting and burning my throat as it came back up.

Suddenly the door behind me opened and a man in a white chef coat and grey hairnet stepped out, cigarette between his lips.

His eyes widened slightly as he realised there was an intruder on his cigarette break. He garbled something in French, his voice deep and slightly husky.

I stared at him for a second before dry-heaving again, bracing myself against the wall.

"Ca va?" he asked me, forehead slightly creased in concern. I realised he had the most gorgeous blue eyes I had ever seen.

I nodded and wiped my mouth on the back of my coat sleeve.

"Attends ici," he gestured briefly before disappearing back through the steel door.

I looked at my watch again: 19:57. Huh, time must fly when you're throwing up.

The blue-eyed Frenchman reappeared, this time with a glass of water. He held it out to me as I eyed him suspiciously.

In New York, no matter what the situation, I would never drink a glass of something offered to me by a stranger. I would even hesitate at an unopened bottle of water.

"Bois-le!" He thrust it into face.

I slowly shook my head and turned to go.

"Wait!"

I twirled around, eyes wide at the English word. Seriously, the French believe their language is a precious heritage and should be nurtured and spoken at all times within the country. Their pride does not usually allow them to condescend to speak the inferior English (which they believe unjustly usurped French as the Lingua Franca.). I rant for a living. That is one of my favourites.

I simply raised an orange eyebrow in question.

"Drink it. You will feel better," his voice sounded even better as his accent caressed the hard consonants of English. Holy crap was I getting turned on by a voice? I just wanted to spread it on my toast in the morning.

Against my better judgement I took the water. The lukewarm liquid soothed my raw throat and settled pleasantly in my very empty stomach. In fact it settled too well, and produced a strangely loud and rather obnoxious gurgling sound.

I felt a blush rise up my neck as the Frenchman in front of me snickered.

"You are hungry?" he questioned, a slight smirk on his face.

I nodded once more, rubbing the back of my neck.

"I finish in..." he looked at his watch, "I finish now. I will grab you a _pain_ and walk you to your hotel, ok _mon roux_?"

Maybe it was the wine that was making me like this or maybe it was that fact that his voice had a mesmerising quality to it that I didn't have the strength to fight, but I simply found myself nodding again.

He disappeared once more through that steel door. I found myself wondering what was, in fact, on the other side. Then his words registered and I scowled to myself. I am pretty sure he just called me ginger. Nobody gets to call me that and get away with it.

My unruly tangerine locks have long been a source of ridicule or admiration from others, and I never quite understood their fascination, I mean, it's only hair for fuck's sake -

The door reopened and my mouth dropped of its own accord.

I take it all back. Hair can be exquisite and fascinating and sexy.

Oh my God.

The Frenchman with the perfect cerulean eyes had reappeared, a dark brown leather jacket and jeans adorning his lean figure.

But that wasn't what made my jaw drop. Oh no.

His hair. His hair was blue as an azure sky in the deepest summer, as an opal held up and caught in the glimmering rays of sun, as the shimmering stillness of an untouched lake in the mountains. Of a pure blue that caught the glimmers of light that the city offered us at this time in the evening and robbed me of all thought and breath and will. Blue.

"Are you ok?" he repeated, finally lighting his cigarette and taking a drag.

I nodded dumbly as he took me by the arm and steered me out into the main street.

The quartier of Montmartre was bustling with food and laughter and music and I don't know how I couldn't hear any of it considering I had only been a few metres away. I guess I had just been too preoccupied.

The square was like a fairground. Artists lined the streets, painting portraits and drawing caricatures for tourists with too much money and time. Waiters flitted in and out of the restaurants, bringing out plates and bringing in tips, reminding me of magpies. It smelt like bread and fried food and to my right a man was selling crepes out of a van, slathered in an ungodly amount of chocolate.

My stomach clenched at the thought of food just as my blue-haired companion spoke again.

"So where are you staying?" he looked at me out of the corner of those sapphire eyes and handing me a sandwich.

It looked as though he had taken half a baguette and shoved a tomato and some ham inside it. As my teeth sank into the crisp crust with a satisfying crunch, I realised just how very hungry I was. The inside was soft and fluffy and the tomatoes decadently sumptuous. I felt something running down my chin but before I could bring up my other hand to wipe it another was doing it in my stead.

As the pad of his thick calloused thumb slid across my chin I suppressed a shiver. I swallowed my mouthful and he stepped back as though he had never been up and in my personal space.

Europeans.

I began to walk in the direction of my hotel, weaving in and out of the throngs of people, concentrating more on eating than where I was going. My companion kept in step, lighting up another cigarette as we continued in a surprisingly comfortable silence.

Soon enough we were in front of my hotel and the sandwich was but a fond memory. I turned to thank him but once again my words were caught in throat as I looked him in the eye.

Those depths captivated me, streaming and blazing in the night, illuminated from within. Time slowed to treacle and I felt as though I were falling into an abyss. Glittering with an unearthly flare and glare, in that instant the blue haired man was so unbearably, hauntingly beautiful that I forgot how to breathe.

And then he blinked and the spell was broken and once again the night was but the night and the moon was only the moon and his eyes were just orbs that he saw me through.

I was just me, outside my hotel, in the city my mother died in and I still hadn't visited her grave. I was still the coward I had always been and probably always would be and I still thought there was no point to anything. The abyss was still there but no longer mysterious, simply a deep dark pit of nothingness. God was nothing and nothing was God.

And then he kissed my hand.

And the fireworks were back.

"Bonsoir et bon courage." He murmured against my skin, his lips soft as petals and his breath a warm caress.

"Est-ce-que je peux avoir au moins ton prénom?" the husky voice continued, that tongue curving around the words and leaving the ends hanging.

"Ichigo." I said, my own voice surprising me with its strength.

"Et moi, je suis Grimmjow. Grimmjow Jaegerjaques," he smirked languidly at me before uttering a phrase that made my heart flutter.

"A demain, Ichigo," he tilted his head at me before turning on his heel and disappearing down the road and into the night.

It was only as I floated up the stairs to my room that I realised throughout the whole encounter I had only uttered one word. My name.

"See you tomorrow."

Those words echoed in my mind and suddenly the city didn't seem as bad as I remembered. The whole day had been unreal, and as I lay down to go to sleep, I simply hoped it hadn't all been an alcohol induced dream.

"A demain," I murmured before falling asleep.


End file.
